Some Sounds of the War

The First World War’s cultural impact can be felt quite heavily in song as well as in literature and art.

A distinction should first be cast between two different kinds of songs: those that were popular on the home front and in the musical halls, and those that had their origins in the trenches themselves. The former certainly made their way into the trenches as well — often with quite surprising additions to the lyrics — but they were not born there.

Music Hall

Songs of this sort were written for popular, public consumption, and often with a patriotic intent. Lyrics ranged from the winkingly suggestive to the nauseatingly sentimental, and much of the pleasure your average Tommy would take from it came with inventing his own additions or substitutions.

Oh! we don’t want to lose you
But we think you ought to go
For your King and Country
Both need you so;
We shall want you and miss you
But with all our might and main
We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you
When you come back again

The man in the trench, swiftly fed up with this kind of cloying sentimentality, had his own take on the matter:

Now we don’t want to hurry you,
But it’s time you ought to go;
For your songs and your speeches
They bore us so.
Your coaxings and pettings
Drive us nigh insane;
Oh! we’ll hate you, boo you and hiss you
If you sing it again.

In a more suggestive strain we see something like Wimperis & Finck’s “I’ll Make a Man of You”, which became a very popular recruiting song early in the war. One may perhaps see why:

The army and the navy need attention,
The outlook isn’t healthy you’ll admit,
But I’ve got a perfect dream of a new recruiting scheme,
Which I really think is absolutely it.
If only other girls would do as I do
I believe that we could manage it alone,
For I turn all suitors from me but the sailor and the Tommy,
I’ve an army and a navy of my own.

[Chorus]

On Sunday I walk out with a soldier,
On Monday I’m taken by a Tar,
On Tuesday I’m out with a baby Boy Scout,
On Wednesday a Hussar,
On Thursday I gang oot wi’ a Scottie,
On Friday, the Captain of the crew,
But on Saturday I’m willing
If you’ll only take the shilling,
To make a man of every one of you.

You’ll have to pardon me — my glasses have fogged up, here. Not content with the promises made above, the soldiers’ amended version ran something like this:

On Monday I touched her on the ankle,
On Tuesday I touched her on the knee,
On Wednesday I confess, I lifted up her dress,
On Thursday I saw it, gorblimey,
On Friday I put me ‘and upon it,
On Saturday she gave my balls a treat,
On Sunday after supper, I whopped me fucker up ‘er,
An’ now I’m paying forty bob a week!

Of these, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” has had the longest life and the most sustained popularity. Originally written in 1912, it became immensely popular both on the home front and as a marching song.

Trench Music

The most usual mode, as I’ve suggested above, was one of parody. This take on “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” was popular among transport drivers:

I’ve been in the saddle for hours
I’ve stuck it as long as I could,
I’ve stuck it and stuck until I said, “Fuck it,
My arsehole is not made of wood.”

Even some “official” songs had a harder edge to them. One of the regimental marches of the Royal West Surrey Regiment, for example:

Here they come, here they come,
Silly great buggers every one:
Half-a-crown a week to pay
For putting a girl in a family way.

Here they come, here they come,
Second of Foot but second to none.
Here they come, here they come,
Second of Foot but second to none.
Bullshit, bullshit,
Covered from head to foot in it.
Bullshit, bullshit,
Covered from head to foot in it.

There were plenty more like all the above — including “Do Your Balls Hang Low?”, which remains weirdly well-known even today. Songs of this sort were a constant staple for the troops, who very often had to produce their own music if they wanted any at all — Decca’s charming efforts notwithstanding:

Interested parties should consult Max Arthur’s When This Bloody War is Over: Soldiers’ Songs of the First World War (2001) or Martin Pegler’s Soldiers’ Songs and Slang of the Great War (2014).

About Nick Milne

Nick Milne is an adjunct professor in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the intersection of literary scholarship and historiography in the study of the First World War, with a particular emphasis on how this has impacted the study of the war's British propaganda writing. He has had work about the war appear recently at Slate and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Further updates on these and related subjects may be found at his blog, Wellington House, or through his twitter feed.